F L C L: How To Start A Fight
by Bad Ronald
Summary: Mischief. Mayhem. And FuriKuri flavored soap... I want you to read this. As hard as you can.
1. One

Welcome to Mabase, Japan.

You probably won't like it here. The Medical Mechanica building's over there. And that down there is my house, the Bakery Shop down at the left. This town really isn't anything special. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happens here.

My name is Naota Nandaba. This is my life.

And didn't you already know? It's ending one minute at a time.

* * *

**F . L . C . L. : How To Start A Fight**

Bad Ronald

* * *

"_Why do you try to justify something like this? Your beliefs? Your goals? Why try and be something you can't possibly be? _

_Why try and become someone who honestly wouldn't give two shits about you? Just let go. Just fall. If you fly or if you hit the ground, you're already past caring. _

_That's the great thing about self-destruction. To become who you are, to truly be yourself, you have to destroy your past image. You have to destroy something beautiful." _

_- _Takkun

* * *

_**One. **__**

* * *

**_

She says she's not Haruko. She's lying. She says she's actually Haruko's Superior and would you please call her **_"Superior Raharu"_**. She's still lying. Even after all we've been through, she still lies.

This **_"Superior Raharu_" **is asking me to listen. It's not my fault I can't help staring at her. She's so beautiful. Listen, Haruko disobeyed her orders and she fell in love with some boy. This boy, he's from this pathetic little planet called Earth. Listen, Haruko broke the Eroero Laws. Look, she already knows she looks like Haruko, but really, she's not. Listen, Haruko's on the run from the Galaxy Space Police brotherhood even as we speak. Right now, she says.

No. I can't bear it anymore. Stop lying to me, Haruko. You can go ahead and lie all you want, but I'm going to tell you the truth. I _love _you, Haruko.

She replies back, "I am the Superior Raharu."

And she still won't admit it.

Even after all we've been through, she still lies. She smirks down at me and I finally notice that we're too close together. Her long legs in pink webbed stocking are wrapped around my torso, the same thing like a snake enshrouding a prey but a lot more sexier. Looking up at her smirk, I know that for serious, if I licked her lips right now, my tongue would be boiled.

She smirks down at me, this sexy, out of this world, steaming hot smirk, and I don't know, but I think I've already wet myself. My ribs are crushing my lungs, my trachea is tightening up, my mouth is cracked dry. My tongue feels like a sea slug poking out through a hardened shell. All she has to do is smirk down at me and I'm already quivering for her.

"And this…" Her hand lifts to touch her firmly toned breasts. "And this…" Her hand lifts to touch her dripping chin. "And this…" Her fingers brush past her short jaggedly cut pink neck-level hair. "And this…" Her hand touches steaming hot moist red lips. Her glossy gleaming lips open and her tongue isn't a sea slug, it's a red beautiful thing, sliding gently over the edges of her mouth.

"This", Haruko says, "is the superior Haruko Haruhara."

After all we've been through, finally, she tells the truth.

I don't remember closing my eyes, but when I open them, my cheeks feel doused in curry. Haruko's cheeks are scarlet red and she looks guilty. Our faces are like inches apart and when I look down, there's this small strand of saliva between our lips. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it was a kiss.

"Keep going." Haruko says. "No, really." For serious?

This great big passionate wet dirty kiss. This is how it started and this is how it ends.

* * *

Takkun is special. He's so great. Our national anthem, but if Takkun had his own way, national anthems wouldn't exist. So let's just call it an ode. 

Ode to Takkun: Takkun Datsu, everyone worships him. So brave, so courageous, so uncaring. And so cool. He's everything we can't be. He's also really mad at me. Well, maybe not. It's a little hard to tell. When he's mad, he looks sad, but he's feeling 'all right'. And vice versa: All right, to sad, to mad.

"I'm not mad at _you_." Takkun says. Somehow, he almost always knows what I'm thinking. "Not you, Naota. I'm mad at society. The society that forged you, Naota, the society that made you, had you, spurned you. Well. All right, okay. Maybe I am a little mad at you. You little prick."

He checks his watch. He always carries a watch. The watch is a gaudy silver scratched stopwatch that he flips around sometimes.

"One minute left. Two students remaining." He says. He laughs at his little stupid Battle Royale joke. He loves that movie for some reason.

The bass guitar he's holding, a blood-red Fender Telecaster, thumps the floor. Fresh and old bruises pockmark the design with some of the metal chipped off in places. I ask him while tied up to his Vespa, shouldn't it be tweaked up to A-note? He doesn't answer and I know he doesn't really care.

He did push aside the Fender Stratocaster, king of all guitars; to get his trademark battered Telecaster, after all. What he wants, he gets. What he gets, he uses. And what he uses, he cherishes it for life, and then throws it away. The legendary pile of leftover shit dumped by Takkun. Like me.

"Don't ever think like that." Takkun says. "I'll never throw you away. You're too important to me." Somehow, Takkun always knows what I'm thinking. "I'm dragging you through this, Naota, kicking and screaming. You're going to understand totally and you're going to love me in the end."

Takkun stares out the huge window and puts his hands on the glass. He looks like a kid looking through an aquarium filled with sharks.

"Fuck you." Takkun says. "I'm not a kid."

I'm tied down to his hot-pink Vespa, feeling like those women in the old American movies that my dad used to watch, those blonde damsels in distress tied down to train tracks.

Takkun says, "Faggot." His Fender Telecaster thumps the floor. "That's not why I tied you up, you know."

I know. I know this because Takkun knows this. To get to space, I faithfully recite; you have to use a Vespa. Most of gravity weighs down on a rocket, space shuttle, even a spaceship of extraterrestrial origins. Simply, gravity doesn't like those things.

"The Vespa's a bribe." Takkun says. "It's a bribe to gravity. Think of gravity as some asshole cop and the Vespa like a shiny gold bar. It's small, compact, completely maneuverable. The Vespa, the perfect interstellar transportation vehicle. If you have the supplies, Naota, you can make a Vespa go to space. But of course, you already know this."

I know this because Takkun knows this.

Takkun smiles and moves away from the window. He looks at me and sighs. "Do you want me to deliver you now?" He asks.

Deliver us, I mockingly say. Deliver us from the depths of sorrow. Deliver us from the constant boring lives we're forced to lead. Deliver us, oh great Takkun Datsu. But please, not just yet.

Takkun says, "You still don't believe in me, but you will. I don't care much for legends, but after this, everyone will know us. They're going to love us, forever. We'll be legends. Famous across the universe."'

His Fender Telecaster, fresh and old bruises, thumps the floor. He tells me, "Legends never die. We're going to live forever. Not just for a decade or a millennium or an era. We're going to live forever."

Takkun, I say. Takkun, you're thinking of aliens. You're thinking of her. You're thinking of Haruko Haruhara.

He leans over and grabs the collar of my shirt, almost ripping it off. He says, "Don't mention that _thing _around me. She almost destroyed you, Naota, and she almost destroyed us."

My eyelids feel sliced open with a razor when I finally peer through the bruised cracks. My forehead still bulges, shaking with some unknown force from inside my skull. Below the great skin horn on my head, I can see the golden hand-iron shaped Medical Mechanica complex from out the window.

"You think the giant hand'll pick it up?" Takkun asks, referring to those humongous clumps of all these metal pieces that happen to shape a giant hand, resting like a junkyard dump next to the Medical Mechanica complex.

I think, maybe. I think, it did, last time.

Takkun walks over to me and taps my bulging forehead, smirking. I can tell he's really tired, he's never been this tired before in his whole life, but he still soldiers on.

He says, "I want to see this through the end."

So, for him, and for Takkun only, I think back to the time this all started. I was here at the beginning. I was here all the way, so I'm the only one who's going to tell this story all the way to the end. For him.

For you, Takkun.

And are you listening? Testing, testing… One, two, three.

* * *

Canti's face screen is always blank. That's pretty much why most fighters get unnerved before they can even stand toe-to-toe with him. His face screen is blank, an emotionless static blue, the basic concept used in the old times of gladiators. Or torturers. 

Simple psychology.

The Romans used it best. The Romans, they were B.T., Before Takkun. Roman emperors, they always wanted to give their audience a wonderful little show. Like say, oh, a wonderful little battle to the death. When they had the gladiator thing going on, these emperors always pitted two particular kinds of men against each other for top audience enjoyment. And it never failed. It always worked.

The match of the century. Some guy, a skinny, small wiry man, versus a huge, muscle-bound freak of a man. This freak's hands are big enough to crush boulders; he can probably bench-press a ton. When they meet, they fight, and when they fight, one of them dies.

The huge man freak's face; forget about it, you can't see it. The face is gone, already covered under layers of armor wrapped around his face, plated armor with barely a slit to see through. Because of this helmet, he is so scary. You can't see his emotions so he's just this big mountain of a man without a face trying to kill you. Cover anyone's face with a cool looking helmet, and you already have an instant badass.

The skinny, wiry small man, this poor guy. You can't help but feel sorry for him. He absolutely can't have a cool helmet or mask. It would ruin the whole effect. Because the audience needs to see his every twinge of fear, his every moment of pain, every triumph of joy. Because the audience is screaming for blood and it's the men's job to satisfy them. Because of that, they use this.

Simple psychology, really. A case of David versus Goliath on a grand scale. Similar to Canti versus… well, anyone.

Canti gets beaten and falls to the ground. The cluster circle of men around us is roaring with so much intensity that you're hearing the roar of the downfall of a giant. Canti struggles up to his feet and with one good swing, he wins the fight. The place is so silent, you can hear a pin drop. This crowd of shirtless, shoeless men that was just cheering his destruction, now reverent with awe.

Behold, if you dare. If you dare, look into his blank impassive face screen. Look into the static television miniature box set he has for a head and behold, the new resurrected mechanical version of the muscle-bound freak gladiator.

There's one thing you have to know about Canti. He's a supposedly high performance, state-of-the-art robot from Medical Mechanica, but to most people he's just another version of the walking Honda humanoid robot. Only he's better looking. Still, he's just as useless. All he can really do is pick up stuff, pass messages, wave at people. Cute, but really, who cares?

Just a waste of taxpayer money. A heap of bolt and nuts, he's practically useless to all of society. Nobody notices because they don't care, and if you don't care, how can you even begin to use it?

Or want to, for that matter?

**The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.**

But for twelve minutes, Canti's a god in the ring. Canti, all clumsy useless 12 feet of his entire metallic frame is now Zeus in all his steel-sculpted prime. Nobody ever tags Canti, they all pass him on to the rest and the rest pass him on to the rest, and so on. He's the scariest fighter around. Only the insane dare to take him on. I'm one of the insane ones. I want to fight Canti.

Mamimi's Lord of the Black Flame.

Our Lord of the Fight.

Not tagging Canti for a fight is like eating Little Prince Curry when you could be chowing down on a bowl full of Habaneros. That's not everyone's thing, but it's mine now.

I've grown up. The sweet and sour stuff don't amount to anything anymore. I eat them every morning and I drink that stuff to wake myself up. Only now, it's hot jalapeno peppers. Habaneros chips. Wasabi. I can tell just by color and texture which ones are the hottest, which ones can burn my tongue down, and I swallow those without a second thought.

A 12-step system, Takkun says. To becoming your true self. To rise from the ashes. To be someone you truly can be. Just yourself.

**The second rule of Fight Club is you do _not_ talk about Fight Club!**

The man opposite Canti, stripped to the waist, no shirts, no shoes, used to be standing upright. Now he's reduced, a simpering wreck, struggling to breathe on the cardboard covered floor. Moaning and vomiting blood, crying for his mother.

And Canti, useless Honda robot v.2 Canti, scary Lord of the Fight freak gladiator Canti, he picks the man up from the floor like a kid scooping up a pile of dirt. Canti pats the man lightly in the back, his giant baseball-mitt hand of steel slapping against bruised flesh. The man hawks and vomits again. The man smiles his slopping bloody black-eyed broken tooth smile. He spits crimson with bile leaking down his mouth and nostrils.

He says, "Thanks." Thanks for beating the shit out of me. Thanks for giving me the greatest moment of my life. Thanks, Cantido-Sama.

Mamimi's Lord of the Black Flame.

Our Lord of the Fight.

Thanks for cleansing me and setting me free. Canti merely nods in response. He doesn't wave to people anymore. He just nods now. His face-screen is still the same.

Static bluish-blank.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I tried to emulate Chuck Palahniuk's writing style but failed so miserably that now this story's written in a stylethat's probably everything Palahniuk stands against. So all I can say is that it has aspects of his style in here, but other than that, it's a mesh-job that I tapped out on the fly. I tried really hard to imitate his style, I really did, but I found myself not enjoying it because I was forced to focus on copying the style instead of telling the fucking story. So for now, until I can become a better writer (or style-copier as the case may be), I'll just use my own method along with some snippets of Palahniuk's. To reduce the mental migraines, just of it as a sort of sad, ridiculous homage. To write something, I have to enjoy it. And to enjoy it, I have to write as I am, not as I do. Or some shit. You know, whatever. 


	2. Two

**Author's Notes: **Well, that's good enough. For the new readers, I would like to remind you that every event in this story means something and that all of these will add up into the end. Palahniuk made his Fight Club short story as an experiment to try and see if he could go as random as he could on progression while NOT losing the reader... looks like I've failed that at first bat! But I'll just shake it off and stop talking and just give you the damn story now. So here we go.

And can you guess what this story's a crossover of? Oh come on, like it hasn't been blantantly obvious in the first chapter...

**

* * *

**

**F . L . C . L. : How To Start A Fight**

Bad Ronald

* * *

_**Two.**_

* * *

Hate Me A Lullaby.

I can't help but wonder why Mamimi writes those stupid little quotes on her cigarettes. Yesterday, it was "Ferocious Impotent". The day before that, it was "Transmogrifier". And this whole thing, all of it, started because of her. I think. I'm not very sure at this point.

The gun was Haruko Haruhara, but Mamimi Samejimi was the gunpowder. It's not Mamimi's fault, really. She just didn't know.

Are high school girls supposed to smoke?

She puts the cigarette out. Big lips, puckery and pink rub across my cheek. I'm trying to ignore her. I didn't like it then, I don't like it now. I can't stop her, though. If she doesn't do this, she'll overflow. Whatever that means.

By all means, Mamimi isn't unattractive. She's actually quite the opposite. Big, puckering pink lips, her kind brown eyes, her cute little upturned nose, fresh, rosy-cheeked face and her slim but healthy body. Any guy my age would die to be in my position, with her entire attention, her small hugs and kisses.

Not me. I'm too busy feeling hurt and dejected, in spite of all her soft, smooching kisses. Her cute nose rubbing across my neck. She's looking for Takkun and I don't know where he is. She won't find him with me.

That feeling, again. That tightening feeling in your chest when you realize the person you kind of like is only using you as a replacement for the person they like a lot, I have it. Right now. That little feeling that makes you mad, make you sad, makes you feel all right. I have that feeling now, and I don't feel all right.

It's not fair.

I like her. Not a lot, but I like her.

And she doesn't see me as she hugs me, kisses me on the cheek, buries her face in my hair. She only sees Takkun.

* * *

That analogy of Haruko being a gun, what I really mean is this. If Haruko pins you with one of her insane grins, you already know you're in deep shit. That's just how it works. She used me in the past but I was the one who was so love struck with her. Right now, I don't know if I still am.

Thiskaleidoscope of all the hellish things that I've been through, rapid-taken pictures of my horrified face, she set it off. Just by being here, she made me happy, and just by leaving, she made me sad.

She came one day exactly the same as she left, with her stark blue Rickenbacker bass guitar, with her yellow Vespa, with her manic attitude towards human life. Getting a guitar smashed across my head was not how I'd want to meet anyone, but here we go; Naota Nandaba, meet Haruko Haruhara.

She was the first to turn my life upside down. Even if I complained about her presence every minute of the day, I still couldn't shake off that feeling in my chest. The tightening feeling in the chest, except this time it feels good. Because I liked her. Haruko was interesting and she barged her way into my life and nothing in my life was ever interesting. Not school, not my family, not Mamimi. Just her. When she showed up with her bass guitar, she proved to me that maybe there as something beyond this shitty world, something worth looking for.

Something worth living for.

And then she left. I haven't seen her for a while. She left, and I feel lonely. I feel like I'm going crazy. Insane.

You don't ever want to get this feeling, but if you do, here's how it works. Think of the common cold. This simple cold strain is already connected to your immune system. No, really, it's been proven. Walk around for an hour in cold, freezing weather, then walk inside a house with the temperature set high enough to melt glass.

You'll throw a monkey wrench into your immune system. You'll be a shivering wreck.

Takkun calls it Stay-At-Home AIDS.

What Haruko did to my mind was screw it up so badly that it wouldn't work anymore. Imagine a circular piece forcing itself into a square hole and you pretty much have the general idea. My mind could only take so much tediousness before she showed up, and when she left, it wasn't willing to go back to that again. Never again.

It's all your fault, Haruko. Why did you do this to me?

* * *

But I digress. It's class time, and our teacher, Miya-Jun, is teaching something completely asinine again. It used to be chopsticks. Learning to use a spork. Making stickers. Making glue out of rice. Now it's cigarettes. Her lesson, it's about how smoking causes people to become walking cancer sticks. Tobacco zombies. I don't really care since I don't smoke. Mamimi smokes a lot and she's not dead. And those TRUTH commercials she keeps showing us, you have to admit, they kind of make non-smoking look pathetic.

From the side of my eyes, I can see Ninamori Eri, the class rep, looking at me all nervous-like. She never looked at me that way before. She's usually looking cool or smug like she won a poker game. I never liked that look on her face.

So I turn to her. If you're like me, right now, your face would feel like whipped batter. Completely beaten and bruised. If you're like me, your jaw feels like its just been dug out from a corpse and drilled onto your skull with a broken screwdriver. Your entire body, it feels like you just went through a meat grinder, except the grinder malfunctioned and broke halfway through the process.

Why? Who cares? You don't know why and you don't care why. All you know is that you feel great. This is better than feeling nice-looking, clean-shaven, freshly laundered, picture-perfect. This is way better than feeling normal. Or aware.

This is feeling like shit. This is feeling like you've been beaten sore on every place in your body you didn't even know you had. And it's the greatest feeling in the world you could ever, ever experience.

So I turn to Ninamori with my blood constantly pooling inside my mouth and seeping out my cracked lips. Here I am, feeling absolutely great, and she looks away quickly to pay attention to the teacher. This little charade. Pretending not to notice. So I suck in the blood, but some squirts out dribbling on the desk, and I have to wipe it away with my sleeve. I wipe it so fast that some of the blood spills to the floor and makes Ninamori cringe in disgust.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but snicker. She really does think I can't see her. And me with my puffed up black eyelids, you'd probably think so too. Will you just look at her, her clean clothes, her perfect angelic face, that poker stare. She thinks she's so much better than me and she probably is. The best thing about this is, do I even care?

So I'll just let Ninamori try her hardest to ignore me. I'll let teacher Miya-Jun start snatching glances at me. Looking across the crowd of kids, I'll let her stare in my direction and pause. And blink. I'll let Miya-Jun look away with furrowed brows and pursed lips, going back to her lesson.

I'll just let Ninamori and Miya-Jun think that they're important to me. That they make some semblance in my life. That I care.

I sneeze and it comes out in a little blood spray. Instantly, right away, every student turns around and moves their desk a little away from me. I try to smile at them, but that was a mistake because the homework sheet on my desk now has a splotched goop of red on it. Oops. Sorry.

I think look a bit screwed up. But really, I probably don't look that bad. I don't even feel that bad. In fact, I totally feel like a fucking big boss.

* * *

**Author Notes:** Next one will be better, for serious. Just wait, but for now, just review, please.


	3. Three

**F . L . C . L. : How To Start A Fight**

Bad Ronald

* * *

_**Three.

* * *

**_

Haruko was the most interesting thing in my life, but Takkun's different. Takkun's the one who can actually beat me up to the point where my life's flashing before my eyes. I'm not talking about my brother, Tadaku, who Mamimi was smitten with before, but Takkun Datsu, who Mamimi's smitten with now. Takkun's the only one to beat me up so badly that I find myself passing out, and I love it. It's pure freedom.

And I'm not a masochist, just so you know. But to be in Fight Club is to be in a place where you can let yourself go free. Most people don't believe it, but they go anyway. To see the truth. And when they see, they join. When they join, they finally get their first taste of freedom. Then they all thank us, both of us. Takkun and I, creators of Fight Club. Central Leadership.

Surprised? Don't be. I was with him every step of the way.

Imagine yourself on the ground, screaming and punching air. This guy's mashing his elbow into your teeth. You think you feel something snap off from your gums and you think you hear it rattle on the ground. Imagine the thrill and joy as you avenge that broken tooth. Pushing off the ground and planting your knee into his ear. Roaring in triumph. Imagine this crowd of shirtless, shoeless men, no boys and no girls and just us grown-ups, all around you. They're all screaming in their own language and speaking in their own tongue.

Look around and look around. And you see them and you smile. There used to be new, freshly-shaven, picture perfect faces in this crowd but now they're all so ugly. They've all destroyed something beautiful and it shows. They've all destroyed themselves so that they can be who they are now. So that they can be free.

This crowd, it's one giant living pulsing thing all around us with the florescent flickering lights above that you don't even notice and that constant never-ending roar. This is the best thing about Fight Club.

Right here, right now, you're so busy helping this other man destroy himself that you don't notice that you're being shaped into an ugly piece of shit too. After this fight, when you look in the mirror, you'll be so proud. So proud of your smashed-in jaw. So proud of your broken nose. And where the hell is your ear? And does it really matter? Of course it doesn't. Because you've just been set free, and now you really, really want to see us and thank us. The creators. Central Leadership.

This is how I met Takkun Datsu. When I first met him, he dropped down in front of me, from nowhere.

He was running away from this group of guys in a basketball court I happened to be crossing. He was trying to start a fight, but he lost his nerve. I'm sure Takkun knew about the guys being a territorial gang and all, but really, what did you expect? This is Takkun we're talking about. He cursed them out and threw cases of soap at them from his knapsack. Called them pansies. Tried to start a fight.

When they came for him, he broke and ran. And before they could get to him, he climbed the fence faster than anything. That's when he dropped down in front of me, completely out of nowhere.

"You have the time?" Takkun said. I didn't understand what he was saying; the guy was breathing and coughing at the same time. He was in luck, though, I always wear a watch.

"You have the time?"

I said, huh?

"The time, right here, right now. Come on."

It's 4:06 p.m. Four o' six, so that means in America, the land of the constant lawsuit, my brother has probably hit a home run. Takkun smiled and handed me a bar of soap from his knapsack. As soon as the first boy jumped over the fence, he was gone.

* * *

Hello, Takkun. 

It's very nice to see you again. And have you come to deliver me yet?

I meet him again during school, after class. After learning about how to use chopsticks, or how to cut paper, or how to pee, I'm heading down the hall. I'm headed this way because Ninamori never comes this way. I'm also going this way because I didn't do my homework.

If she found me, she'd give me hell. I didn't do my homework so it's this big sin on her part. It's not enough that she has to be perfect, but I have to be perfect too. Clean-shaven. Freshly laundered. Picture-perfect.

If she found me, she'd act like she was my boss. She'd give me a lecture along with one of her patented poker faces. She'd give me one of those passing looks that will not-so-subtly say she's better than me. And I really don't need that right now.

A tap on my shoulder and cue Takkun Datsu. Takkun tosses me a bar of soap and a smirk. It's you.

He laughs and he says, "I'm not 'you'. Call me Takkun."

I'm thinking of Mamimi down under that lonely bridge, down at the river. If she met this guy and liked him, what would she call him? Takkun was Mamimi's name for me. And Takkun's name was Takkun, so why did he have my name? But for serious, it's not. My name, I mean.

My name? It's Naota. Naota Nandaba.

Takkun smirks again. He says, "I know." He shakes my hand and nods to the soap. He made it himself. Takkun makes and sells soap and to make soap, you need lye. I know this because Takkun knows this.

Takkun says, "Hello, Naota."

And he says, "It's very nice to see you again."

And he says, "I'm here to deliver you now."

* * *

At lunchtime, the person who is better than me finally shows up. Ninamori Eri catches me eating with Takkun on the lunch table. Except Takkun's already under the table when Ninamori stalks up to us. He's chowing down habanero chips and laughing his head off and I swear, those habanero chips are bell peppers on steroids. 

Takkun's laughing because I'm sipping Little Prince Curry.

Ninamori crosses her arms and demands to know where I've been. She's been looking all over for me. Her hands are on her hips when she demands to know why I've skipped out on my homework. Her hand slams down on the table before she demands me to come with her to the principal's office. Her mouth stretched back into an angry scowl, her nostrils flaring, her eyes glaring holes into mine, she demands to know why I haven't been perfect like her. Then she looks at me like she's better than me.

Hello, Ninamori. And how are you today?

From under the table, Takkun laughs and almost chokes on his habanero chips. He says, "What are you, Naota, whipped? Who does this girl think she is?"

Takkun laughs. "Go on." Takkun laughs and says, "No, really. She thinks she's better than you, so tell her. You tell her she's not the boss of you."

Take a deep breath. Look at Ninamori's angry scowl. You're not the boss of me.

Takkun laughs and says, "Tell her she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about."

Look at Ninamori's flaring nostrils. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Takkun laughs and says, "Tell her she's just a child playing an authority figure."

Look at Ninamori's eyes glaring holes into mine. You're just a child playing an authority figure.

Takkun laughs and says, "Will you look at this poor deluded little rich girl. I mean, she thinks she can actually be an adult. Her opinion's worthless, man. She's got zero control over anything. None of her stupid silly little rules will ever apply to you."

He says, "This spoiled little rich girl. She should just go run back home to her pathetic father. Her bitch of a mother. Her 4000 square foot three-story house. She should just go to back to them and cry her fake liar crocodile tears out for them because this girl, man, she should realize the world doesn't bend to her will. If her parents don't care about her, then why should we? She should know that we don't depend on her like she depends on us to give her the time of the fucking day."

He says, "This poor deluded spoiled little rich girl. Little simpering brats like her, she should just go play over there."

I look at Ninamori, this poor deluded spoiled little rich girl, and I say this and I say this and I say this. Her scowling mouth's gone because it's a shivering frown now. Her nostrils suck back air. Her eyes don't glare holes into mine anymore, they water over and glimmer with tears.

It was across the face and I didn't feel the slap before I realize Ninamori's crying. And when I realize I made her cry, I'm already stumbling over my chair and trying to say I'm sorry. It comes out in this desperate babble and I fall over my seat.

Takkun's under the table, laughing and choking on his chips. Habanero chips. Bell peppers on steroids. I'm under the table, stumbling and choking on Ninamori's feelings. And what am I doing? Get out from under there. Tell her. I didn't mean it. I was just saying what he told me to. Listen, Ninamori, listen. Ninamori, I didn't mean it.

I'm sorry.

Ninamori's not listening. She's crying and shaking and can't see straight. She's trying to speak but her mouth shudders like a gasping fish and I don't understand what she's saying.

Takkun says, "She's just crying, dude. She's not saying anything worthwhile. This girl, will you listen to her? Cry, sob, BOO HOO HOO."

Ninamori turns and runs away from the room with her hands over her wet eyes. Shuddering and barking fresh sobs, crying and sobbing and boo hoo hoo.

Takkun says, "Good riddance" when the door slams shut.

* * *


End file.
